I've been teaching for 11 years now, and having taught approximately 60 - 80 students every year, I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 graduates who have taken my class. My school is unique in that we are not a local high school but one that receives students from all across the district (and actually, all across the state of New Jersey, ( Read more... )

Below is my current class list of students. I have 74 students (43% females and 57% males) this year. My Olivias and Andrews are all in the same class. Two Catherines are in the same class, and the two Stephanies chose to sit next to each other. Both Shanes and Walters are in the same class. One Walter volunteered to go by his middle name, but that ( Read more... )

I need your vote on YouTube! All it takes is to hit LIKE on YouTube ( Read more... )

Jan 13 - classroom
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The students had Final Exams from Monday through Thursday, and today was graduation. Our graduation ceremony is held outdoors on an old military parade grounds next to our school, the same one we use for physical ed. It rained in the morning and left the grass soggy, but the sun came out (leaving us at a sweaty 82 F) with a gentle ocean breeze and ( Read more... )

Did you see this article?

Is the Professor Bossy or Brilliant? Much Depends on Gender

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My principal walked in on my class, unannounced, twice this week ( Read more... )

So the student who said this is now a senior, which means it has been going around the school for three years, but finally a teacher confided in me and shared the story, and I have since asked around, and results show the story is pretty well established without my knowledge ( Read more... )

For those new to my Livejournal, I was a senior in college, living in a dorm room in upper Manhattan, on September 9, 2001. I was not an American citizen; I was a citizen of a Muslim-based nation. I posted on LJ within minutes of the first plane crash, and continued to post several times in the coming days. I went back in my Archives and read some ( Read more... )

Here's your metaphor for the day.

Teaching is like painting a huge Victorian mansion. And you don't actually have enough paint. And when you get to some sections of the house it turns out the wood is a little rotten or not ready for the paint. And about every hour some supervisor comes around and asks you to get down off the ladder and explain why ( Read more... )